


Distrust

by AgentMaryMargaretSkitz, IncendiaGlacies



Series: Legends of S.H.I.E.L.D [2]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Agents of Shield AU, Episode: s01e05 Girl in the Flower Dress, Lies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 03:11:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14010900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentMaryMargaretSkitz/pseuds/AgentMaryMargaretSkitz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncendiaGlacies/pseuds/IncendiaGlacies
Summary: AOS AU: Zee makes a decision that puts her future with SHIELD and Gideon's team in jeopardy.





	Distrust

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in love with this AU and I'm taking advantage of the last bit of extended free time I have before things get hectic to post this.
> 
> Hope you all enjoy what's been done in this part.

“Come on. Just say it.”

“You sank my battleship.”

               Gideon smiled as Zee did a victory dance in her chair as Nathaniel shook his head. The hacktivist had come a long way since she’d first been brought aboard the plane. She was now training under Nathaniel to become a field agent. Normally they were in the cargo bay sparring, but today they were learning about strategy by playing board games. Gideon had to admit, it was a creative technique.

“She’s really starting to fit in, isn’t she?” Rip’s voice said behind her.

Gideon glanced back at the team pilot. “She is. I’m glad to see it happen. Nathaniel’s a good SO for her. For his first trainee, he’s doing excellent.”

“He is,” Rip agreed. “You were up early this morning. Trouble sleeping?”

“Too much energy,” Gideon replied. Ever since her resurrection, that’s how she had been. Sometimes she felt like she was buzzing with energy and she had to get it out.

“You know, I can always pull out the mats for us,” Rip said casually. “We could go a few rounds.”

Before Gideon could respond, an alert went off in the briefing room. They had a new mission.

“Maybe another time,” Gideon murmured. “Would you go downstairs and-”

“I’ll get them,” Rip nodded. “You tell Heywood and Zee.”

* * *

 

               Zee felt reminded of all the times she’d been in the principal’s office as she stood before Gideon in her office. The new mission had been to find a missing person from the Index, but then the head agent investigating the disappearance had mentioned that Helix, the group she hacked for, had been responsible for it. Everyone had immediately looked at her and she could practically feel the blame shift onto her. It hadn’t even been her hack, but whoever had done it was stupid to do it while she was in the belly of the beast.

“I wasn’t behind it,” she told Gideon. “I have been on the plane the whole time with you guys.”

“I believe her, ma’am,” Nate added. “Zee’s my trainee. I think I’d know if she was hacking into SHIELD.”

She gave him a grateful smile.

“We’re not saying it was you,” Gideon said gently. “But it was someone from Helix. Is there anyone you think is capable of doing this?”

“At least half a dozen I can name automatically,” Zee nodded. “Helix has a huge network of people. If you give me access, I can trace the hack and we can figure out who’s behind it. Then we can confront them and you can do your SHIELD thing.”

She had no idea if that was going to work. But she was choosing to leave out the part that she was going to give a heads up to whoever was the idiot who had hacked in on the mission.

“Okay,” Gideon agreed. “Go back down, work with Raymond to trace the hack.”

“Thanks.”

* * *

 

               Of course, it had been Cooper Seldon. As soon as his smug face had popped up that she’s traced his café charge to, Zee had pressed her lips together to prevent from swearing. Yes, he was a brilliant hacker, but he could be so arrogant. He knew she was in SHIELD right now, but he still went ahead and hacked in anyways. While the rest of the team made plans to apprehend him, she’d sent an encrypted warning text to him.

               As soon as she could, she’d made her way back to his apartment. She was lucky that she’d crashed there enough times that Cooper had finally given her a key. Taking a seat on his couch, Zee had waited for him to come back. He had been surprised when he first came in and saw her. When she pressed him, Cooper told her that he’d been trying to get the files out into the world where they belonged.

               SHIELD was going to be coming after him now. Cooper could be a bit of a tool at times, but he was still part of Helix. She had been friends with him for ages and he had bailed her ass out a few times before. If SHIELD didn’t have a trail to follow, they wouldn’t be able to follow after him and Cooper could be free of them. So the two of them set to work together on erasing anything that was connected to him.

“You’re certain you weren’t being followed here, right?” Cooper asked as they started working together to wipe any trace of his digital footprints.

“Positive,” Zee replied. “Where’s your laptop?”

“Outside in the living room.”

Zee nodded and opened the door to the room they’d been working in. However, she froze instead of stepping out. Standing in front of her, holding Cooper’s laptop, was Rip Hunter. He looked furious with her.

“How long have you been here?” she asked.

“Long enough,” Hunter said shortly. “Both of you, out here now.”

* * *

 

               When they got back to the Waverider, Gideon had Cooper and Zee put in the cage before going to her office. The hacktivist had tried to apologize while SHIELD was working to recover the data on Cooper’s computers, but Gideon hadn’t wanted to hear it. Raymond and Lily, their normally bubbly demeanors diminished by the betrayal of Zee, were instructed to search for what Cooper had been hacking to find out specifically and if he had been doing it for anyone. Rip had gone to the cockpit to get the wheels up and start flying the plane towards China where their missing enhanced had been tracked down to.

               She had seen promise in Zee when she first meet her while they were searching for Rene Ramirez. Had she not found SHIELD in her life, Gideon could easily see herself having turned out the same way Zee did. But the betrayal stung since she had put so much faith and trust in the girl. Now she couldn’t stop thinking about what else Zee could have been lying about.

Rip entered her office once they were well into the sky. He didn’t say a word as he sat down across from here.

“Are you here to say I told you so?” she asked. “Because I admit it, you were right about Zee being trouble for us.”

“That’s not why I came,” Rip shook his head. “Although when a stranger comes into my house, I don’t usually invite them to stay. Especially a wildcard like her.”

“Yes, I imagine they must meet a harsher response,” Gideon muttered dryly. “Truth is, I used to share that same viewpoint. Then an alien staff went right through my heart and I died. When I came back, I stopped seeing things as black and white. There’s so many shades of grey in between the two colors. With Zee, I thought she was one of those greyer shades.”

“You always do seek out the best in people,” Rip replied. “You always have, Gideon.”

Gideon nodded. “Having someone see the best in you and then bring it out in the open is one of the greatest acts humanity can bestow upon one another. With Zee, I saw her heart and her passion to make the world a better place. I thought I could redirect that energy towards SHIELD, and suddenly she wanted to be a part of this. Then she went behind out backs and did this.”

“If you’re blaming yourself for trusting her, you should stop,” Rip instructed. “No one saw this coming. You’re not clairvoyant, Gideon.”

“I know,” she sighed. “How are the others?”

“They’ve all dealing with it,” he said. “Nate’s blaming himself. The sunshine twins are hurt. They’ve thrown themselves in sifting through all the data they got from Seldon’s computer.”

“I had a feeling they’d take it hard,” Gideon murmured. “But I’m hoping what they can find is able to help us locate where our missing enhanced is hiding out.”

* * *

 

               Their enhanced, Henry Hewitt, was finally located to be in China. Despite what Zee had thought, Cooper had been guilty of giving the information on Hewitt to someone. A woman had contacted him, expressing interest in the work Helix did and telling Cooper she believed he had a gift for hacking while also neglecting to give him her name. He had gotten information from SHIELD on Hewitt and then received over a million dollars in compensation. Zee had no idea that he had done this, and she’d been utterly furious.

They discovered Hewitt was in the clutches of the group known as Mirakuru, named for their serum they’d been injecting into participants. Rene Ramirez, their first mission, had been one such person who’d been a part of the program. However, it seemed that the only purpose for recruiting Hewitt had been to take his blood platelets, which were resistant to combustion due to his abilities. In retribution, he’d taken an excessive number of Mirakuru injections and started going volatile.

Rip had arrived there with Gideon, Nate, and Zee, who was only along to salvage any digital data they could from Mirakuru to figure out what they were planning in their long game. Gideon had attempted to talk Hewitt down, but to no avail. Rip had needed to make the touch call and injected him with more Mirakuru to bring him to the point where he was going to explode. They’d all had to run out of the building before he did and barely managed to make it before an explosion sounded out above them.

Rip looked over to see Gideon staring up at the burning upper level of the building. He could tell by the look on her face that she was blaming herself all over again, only this time it was for what happened to Hewitt.

“Ma’am,” Nate spoke up. “You can’t save someone from themselves.”

Gideon shook her head. “You can if you get to them early enough.”

Nate didn’t reply to that.

* * *

 

“My office. Now.”

               That was all Gideon said to her as she walked by Zee. Just a few minutes ago, she had watched as the agent gave Cooper an ultimatum to either put on a bracelet that would limit his ability to access the Internet or to be taken back to a worse fate at a SHIELD HQ. Cooper had chosen the bracelet, a surprisingly wise move on his part. Then he had been ordered to get off the plane, even though they were in China and not the States.

Zee scooted off the crate she had been sitting on to leave the cargo bay. This was going to be even worse than when she had gone to Gideon’s office earlier before Cooper had come into play.

“No goodbye for me, Zee?” Cooper called out as she climbed the staircase.

               She ignored him and walked right into the living areas of the plane. Lily and Ray were examining something on a tablet in the kitchen, looking up as she passed by. When she told them where she was going, Ray wished her luck and Lily offered a tiny comforting smile. Zee felt hopeful that they’d be able to forgive her when she could apologize to them properly.

Nate was reading a book on the couch while Ray sat at the bar. Neither acknowledged her when she stopped in the middle of the room.

“Um, Nate?” she cleared her throat. “Gideon called me into her office to talk to me. Being my SO and all, should you be there with me?”

Nate shook his head and turned a page. “No can do. I’m off the clock. Besides, it’s not my place.”

               There went her last hope of support. She didn’t even both asking Rip. He had a silent fury in the stare he was directing at her. Zee was on her own to face the music, and she could deal with that. She had been the one who goofed up anyways. No one else had been a part of what she had done.

               Her heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest as she entered Gideon’s office. The leader of the team might be the shortest out of everyone, but right now Zee felt ten inches tall. Slowly, she lowered herself into the seat at the front of Gideon, biting her lip. After a minute of silence, Zee opened her mouth.

“I’m sorry that-”

“Stop,” Gideon cut her off. “Stop lying.”

Zee frowned. “I’m not lying.”

“Are you sure about that?” Gideon challenged. “Because ever since we brought you on board this plane and into this team, you have been lying to everyone. People were beginning to believe in you, Zee. Rip, Nathaniel, Raymond, Lily, myself! We saw you as a part of this team, and then you broke our trust!”

Zee pressed her lips together, telling herself not to break down in front of Gideon.

“You have a secret, Zee,” Gideon continued, her tone still harsh and firm. “You have had it since you came on board. You need to tell me what it is now, or you are done on this team. So what’s it going to be?”

               Zee swallowed, her hands coming up to her neck. She did want to be an agent of SHIELD, but she also wanted to find out the truth. Now was the time to come clean about why she had wanted to find SHIELD in the first place before she’d even wanted to become a part of it. Her fingers found the catch to click the small compartment of her necklace and opened it. She took the small card in hand and placed it on the desk between her and Gideon.

“What is this?” Gideon asked, looking moderately puzzled.

“It’s everything that I have,” Zee replied, placing her hands back on her lap.

“On us?” Gideon raised an eyebrow. “On SHIELD?”

“No,” Zee shook her head. “On me.”

Gideon reached over and plugged it into a port. She looked over at the screen to their left as a series of images popped up. Zee glanced over as well, even though she knew every single thing that was going to come up. Still, sometimes she hoped that she could have some kind of breakthrough looking at it.

“This is why I learned to hack systems,” she explained hoarsely. “Why I joined Helix. I wanted to find out any details that I could on my parents.”

A SHIELD document appeared on the screen. Almost all of it was blacked out and redacted. Gideon tilted her head at the sight of it.

“I was left at a group home when I was a baby,” Zee told her. “No family, no name, nothing. That document from SHIELD, it’s the only piece of information I can find about myself. It took me years to find it and I want to know what’s on it. You can throw me off this plane and kick out of SHIELD, but I won’t stop looking for them.”

Gideon looked back from the screen at her. “I understand.”

Zee blinked. “What?”

“My mother picked up and left the minute I was born,” Gideon told her. “My father raised me, but I always wondered about the woman who gave birth to me. I couldn’t find a trace of her anywhere. When I got to SHIELD, I wanted to search for her with SHIELD’s resources. My SO agreed to help me out, but she also told me that I had to be sure that I was committing myself to become a SHIELD agent for the greater good, not just to find my mother.”

“I can guess how that story turned out.”

Gideon’s lips quirked up a tiny bit as she took the card out of the port and returned it to Zee. “Yeah. Now, it’s your turn. Are you willing to become a SHIELD agent for the greater good?”

“After everything I’ve seen,” Zee replied. “A woman forced to do things through her robotic eye, a Hydra-era weapon, and the Mirakuru serum. I think this is where I’m meant to be. I feel like I’ve found more of a purpose here than anywhere else I’ve ever been.”

“Good,” Gideon nodded. “I have to warn you, you might not like what you find on this quest of yours.”

“It can’t be any worse than what I’ve imagined,” Zee said softly.

“Whatever it is on that document, I’ll help you find it,” Gideon reached into her desk and pulled out a small case. “However, there’s one more thing we still have to do.”

She passed it over to Zee. When she flipped it open, her heart sank a little. Inside was a bracelet just like the one Cooper had received. This was the internet-limiting bracelet.

“You still betrayed us,” Gideon reminded her. “There have to be consequences. It will come off eventually though. You need to prove yourself again to us.”

Zee picked it up and placed it on. “Whatever it takes. Anything else?”

Gideon shook her head. “No. You’re free to go.”

Zee stood up. “I’m going to say this to everyone sooner or later, so I’ll start with you. I am sorry, and I mean it sincerely. I messed up big time. But I am going to prove myself to you that I am determined to be an agent of SHIELD.”

“Apology accepted,” Gideon nodded. “Thank you, Zee. For being honest with me now.”

“Cool,” Zee murmured, feeling relieved that she was on the road to repairing her relationship with Gideon. She started to leave but stopped just before she could leave the office.

“Hey, Gideon?” she asked.

Gideon looked back up at her.

“Your mom? Did you ever find out about her?”

“That’s a story for another time. Get some rest, Zee.”

Zee nodded and took her leave.

* * *

 

“How did your talk with Zee go?” Rip asked as Gideon entered the cockpit.

“There was lecturing,” Gideon replied. “But she’s going to stay with us, keep training to be a SHIELD agent. I had her put on one of those bracelets that I gave Seldon though. “

Rip didn’t reply.

“Zee is committed,” Gideon added. “She wanted to get on SHIELD’s radar at first though. She was abandoned as an infant with no known family or name, but she’s been searching for them for a long time. All she could find connected to her past was a document redacted by SHIELD. I promised if she stays committed to becoming one of us, I’ll help her.”

Rip put the plane on autopilot and turned towards her. “You told her about your mother, didn’t you?”

“I did,” she confirmed. “But not everything.”

“Good,” Rip nodded. “You know, she came and apologized to me.”

“Did you forgive her?” Gideon asked. “Or was it silent forgiveness.”

He shot her a look. His friend held up her hands.

“Okay, she’ll figure it out then,” Gideon said. “Well, make sure you get some sleep, Rip. Good night.”

She exited the cockpit. Rip turned back to face the sky and began to fly the plane on his own again.

Hopefully Zee’s parents were in no way connected to Gideon’s resurrection, otherwise his updates to Waller were going to require a lot more information.

**Author's Note:**

> So for those who have seen Agents of SHIELD, you know where this is headed ;)
> 
> Please leave a review and/or kudo, they make our days


End file.
